


The Watcher

by ToothPasteCanyon (DannyFenton123)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 13:24:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13295799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DannyFenton123/pseuds/ToothPasteCanyon
Summary: It's been lonely, these past few decades. Alcor plans to reconnect with the latest incarnation of Mizar, but she may just find him first.





	The Watcher

_Dear Proof Journal,_

_Somebody’s watching me. And yes, I know that sounds crazy! I’m not a secret agent, or an alien from outer space, or the President (yet). I’m just a normal twelve-and-a-half year old girl. My sister said I was acting crazy when I told her, but I’ll show her. I’m going to find proof, and I’m going to stick it down in this journal, and then when I show it to her she won’t have any choice but to believe me!_

_And then I can finally get a good night’s sleep._

_Lots of love from Mandy_

                Sitting on her bed, Mandy frowned sleepily at her last sentence. That… didn’t sound right. Why’d she end off with ‘lots of love’? That made it sound like she was writing a birthday card. She could have done something cool, like… like…

                Like…

                As she was thinking, a rather blank expression plastered on her face, somebody walked past her doorway, then stopped and looked in. “You trying to catch flies with that mouth?”

                “Wha-?“ Mandy spotted her sister, and quickly slammed her journal shut and hid it under the covers. “Nothing Ellie, I’m fine, I’m- wait, what did you say again?”

                “I asked you if you were trying to catch flies with that mouth, doofus.” Ellie walked over and drew back the covers. “What’s this? Looks like a secrety secret!”

                “It’s nothing!”

                “Oh, it’s nothing, is it?” Her eyes twinked with amusement as she picked it up. “I feel like you’re lying to me. Let me guess: did you join a cult? Five bucks you joined a cult.”

                Despite herself, Mandy let out a scandalised giggle. “Ellie! I did not!”

                “Well, there’s only one way to know for sure! Opening, opening, opened!”

“Wait, it’s private! Ell-lie! Give it back, please! Ellie?”

                Ellie was grinning when she opened the journal, but it died in the seconds she took to read the entry. Mandy raised an eyebrow.

                “Ellie? Are you okay?”

                “Hey, about what you were saying last night… you really think someone’s watching you?” She looked up from the journal, suddenly wearing a guilty expression. “I thought you were kidding.”

                “Well, I mean, it was just… I mean, I just feel something sometimes, like… like somebody’s behind me, watching me. Yesterday I was drawing in the living room, and I felt it, and I turned around and I swear, for half a second I saw somebody!” Mandy frowned at her sister. “You’re making that face again. Just forget I said anything.”

                “No, no, I… I believe you.”

                She gave Ellie a look.

                “I do!” She held up the journal. “If you’re this worried? Of course I believe you! It just sounds a bit odd that some guy can appear in the middle of the living room while I’m reading scripts, and leave without so much as a broken window...”

“I mean, that’s what I saw, but maybe I’m exaggerating. I don’t know-“

                “No, no, no, Mandy, that’s not what I meant.” She sighed. “Look, I know this past year has been kind of… crazy? A lot’s happened – to you – and-and, I mean, despite it all, it’s been really fun having you live with me. I hope… you’ve been having fun, too.”

                “Yeah… but, where are you going with this?”

                “I’m sorry I didn’t take you seriously. I know I can be a bit of a goof sometimes, and I can take it too far.” Ellie handed the journal back to her. “And I’m sorry you felt that you had to handle this on your own. You’re still a kid, you shouldn’t be worrying about people watching you and showing up out of nowhere. That’s my job… and also probably the police’s.”

Mandy’s head shot up. “Wait, the police?”

                “Yeah, who else do you think handles stuff like this? The Tooth Fairy?”

                “But-! Huh. I guess that makes sense.” She looked up as Ellie stood and walked towards the door. “But wait! What’s going to happen?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll sort it out tomorrow.” She paused at the entrance, looking back with a little smile. “And hey, slumber party in my room?”

                Mandy’s eyes widened. “Yes, please.”

                “Then what are you waiting for?” She held the door open. “Get your blanket and your butt over to my room! Let’s go, chop chop!”

                Grabbing a chunk of her bedsheets, Mandy raced past her and zoomed down the hall, laughing like she didn’t have a care in the world. Ellie shook her head; kids were pretty darn resilient.

                And she had no idea what to do about this.

                Mandy shut the door to her sister’s room, and lock clicked. Ellie pushed the thought aside. “Did you just lock me out of my room?”

                The only answer was a stifled giggle.

                “Oh, but look at this! Your room is wide open.” Ellie hid herself on the wall next to the door, calling, “Rookie mistake! I’m gonna put something in your bed!”

                “You wouldn’t!”

                “I’ve got so many choices! Whipped cream? Eggs? No, no, I got it. Glitter!”

                “Nooo! It took months to clean my room the last time you did that!”

                “Come stop me, then! I’m doing it, I’m doing it…”

                The door swung wide open. “Wait! You-“

                Ellie grabbed her little sister in a hug. “Gotcha!”

                “Hey! Put me down!”

                “Oof, you’re getting so heavy...” She carried Mandy over to the bed. “I can’t… quite… keep you up…”

                Then she fell forward.

                “Gerroff me!” Mandy tried not to laugh as she started to snore. “I know you’re not asleep! Ellie! Ellie!”

 

* * *

 

                “Hello? Oh, hi, this is Melanie Smith, I’m Mandy’s guardian.” Ellie flashed a quick smile at Mandy as she talked on the phone. “Amanda Smith, she’s in seventh grade? Yeah, I’m calling her out of school today. She’s sick; got a cough, fever, voice is gone, all that jazz. Yep, all day. Okay. Okay, thank you! Have a nice-”

                “Yes! No school!”

                “What? No, that wasn’t her. That was my… mailman. She just graduated, we’re very proud of her. Anyway, have a nice day!” She clicked off. “Alright, I think she bought it. No thanks to you, Mr No-Inside-Voice!”

                “I thought you already hung up!”

                Ellie ruffled her hair. “You little goofball… hey, don’t you have a jacket? It’s cold outside.”

                “But it’s all sunny!”

                “That doesn’t mean anything, trust me. Oh, I found one!” She pulled it off the coat hook on the wall and handed it to her. “Alright, it turns out the police station is literally a five minute walk away. Leggo!”

                They opened the door, letting in a chilly breeze that made Mandy shiver and begrudgingly don the offered jacket. Ellie walked out first – looking up and down the street as she did so – and led the way.

                It was a rather nice day, despite the cold wind. Not a cloud in the sky, and the trees that lined the streets were full and green. Everything was rather nice… except, of course, for everything that wasn’t.

                Ellie’s gaze strayed over to Mandy. Her sister… she was smiling now, but she looked so tired. Bags hung heavy and purple under her eyes, and she couldn’t help but wonder when that had started. Last night, she’d tried to wrest a few more details about this watching person, but Mandy couldn’t name any potential suspects, or remember what they looked like, or even the date it started.

“It wasn’t even that bad when it was just a feeling,” She’d said. “I mean, it didn’t feel creepy or scary being watched, it was more like… somebody was looking out for me, you know? I don’t know how to explain it. But then I saw them in the living room, I know that for sure. Then it was kind of weird.”

It wasn’t a lot to go off of, and in a lighter situation Ellie might have just laughed it off.  But there was something about the way Mandy talked about this watching person, like more of an old friend than anything else, that set her on edge. Something weird was going on with her sister, and she didn’t like it one bit.

                “Ellie?”

                Ellie blinked, and suddenly realized she’d zoned out staring at her sister’s face. “Yeah?”

                “Are you okay? You’re giving me a weird look.”

                “Me? Oh, I’m fine. Just daydreaming, you know?” She put on a smile. “Hey, look at that tree! That’d be a great place for a treehouse, am I right? Man, now I really want a treehouse.”

                Mandy rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I wonder which one of us is the adult.”

                “Hey, I file taxes. That makes me the adult.” They came to a street corner. “We’re going right here. Hey, there it is!”

                A tall building loomed on the far, opposite end of the street. ‘NEW SAN FRANCISCO POLICE DEPARTMENT’ was printed above the entrance, and two police magicars hovered just outside, idling.

Mandy stopped dead.

 “Hey, you okay?” Ellie glanced around. “Did you see someone?”

                “No! It’s not that, it’s… um…” Mandy blushed. “I-I, um… I don’t want to go inside.”

                “Oh, don’t worry. It looks like a big scary building, but we’ll be in and out in five minutes.”

                “Yeah…”

                “And if you want, I can do all the talking! So don’t even worry about it.”

                Looking nowhere close to convinced, Mandy said, “Okay.”

                “That’s the spirit! Now come on, we’re so close! I’ll race you!”

                They raced, and Ellie won. She practically pulled Mandy up the final steps, and opened the door for her at the top.

                The inside of the police station felt a lot like any other reception, but with more police. The air was cool and slightly stale. The walls were a solid white, occasionally broken by framed pictures, plaques, or informational posters, and the carpet was a generic brown pattern. Three receptionists manned three desks, each with a small line of people trailing out from them. Seven plastic chairs were placed in the corner around a table full of magazines. They were all empty.

                Mandy immediately went over to the magazines and began flipping through them. Ellie got in line. It was so quiet, she thought. Receptions were often like that, and it never failed to creep her out. She wasn’t good at being quiet.

                The line moved forwards. Ellie sneezed, and it echoed throughout reception like an explosion. Several people turned around to stare at her.

                Case in point.

                The line moved forwards again, and suddenly Mandy was at her side. She leaned into Ellie’s leg.

                “You doing doing okay, sis?” Ellie whispered, which still managed to reach everyone in the room.

                “Yeah,” Mandy mumbled into her leg. “There wasn’t anything interesting.”

                She put an arm around her sister. “Not long now.”

                The line moved forwards one last time, and now they were at the front of the line. The receptionist, a man in a tan police uniform with a rather long beard, smiled at her.

                “How can we help you?”

                Ellie looked down at Mandy. “Hi, I’m Melanie Smith. We’d like to report a crime. My sister’s… well, she saw someone in our house last night, and for a few months now she’s been getting the feeling that she’d being watched. I know this sounds really vague, but if there’s any way you can help-“

                The man nodded. “Oh, that’s a haunting!”

                She blinked. “A what?”

                “A haunting. We get this a lot. There’s nothing we can do about it, but there’s plenty of ward layers in the city who can come by and keep the ghosts from bothering you.”

                “Wait, so… ghosts? There’s ghosts in our house?”

                Beside her, Mandy frowned.

                “Yes, but it’s no big deal. Like I said, we get this a lot and it’s a simple fix.”

                “Oh. Oh, phew!” Ellie let out a little laugh. “Wow, that’s… that’s miles better than anything I was thinking about. We’ll do that, thanks!”

                “Wait.” Mandy got up on her tippy toes to better talk to the man. “Why would a ghost appear if nobody died?”

                “I’m not an expert by any means, but it could easily have been left there by a previous resident.”

                “But isn’t it weird that only I can see it?”

                “You probably have a bit of the Sight, that’s all.”

                Both sisters spoke at the same time. “The Sight?”

                “It’s nothing to be worried about. It just means you can see magical stuff a little more easily than most people. Like ghosts, for instance.”

                Mandy leaned forwards. “How does that work?”

The man looked behind them at the growing line. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m the best person to ask about this. There are plenty of web sites that talk about haunting in much more detail.”

“Oh, no problem!” Ellie said, and Mandy slouched back down, frowning in confusion. “Thank you for your time!”

                They walked out of the station. As soon as the door closed, Ellie let out a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, thank god. So it’s not nearly as serious as we thought. By the way, what’s a ward layer? I’ve gotta look that up… and also a whole lot of other supernatural stuff. Man, I didn’t even consider that ghosts would do that; think of the trouble that would have saved us!”

                As they went down the steps, Mandy suddenly had that feeling, that _certainty_ she’d come to recognize as someone’s eyes on her. There, between the police cars! It was the guy!

                The two of them locked eyes, and all Mandy could see was the pain, the suffering, the sheer misery etched on his face. Then he was gone, evaporated like a drop of water on burning coals.

                Somebody was calling her name, but it wasn’t until something touched her shoulder that she thought to respond.

                “Mandy?” Ellie was smiling down on her, that wider, brighter grin she recognized as her worried face. “You doing okay there, sis?”

                “I… um…” She looked back at the place where the man had been, and saw nothing. “We should look up ghosts when we get back. I wanna check something.”

                “Yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying! You must be really sleepy if you missed all of that!” Ellie nudged her as the two walked together. “And hey… what’s this whole Sight thing you got going on? We should see what that’s about, too! Sounds cool.”


End file.
